preview

The Impact Of Fear In The Lord Of The Flies

Good Essays

In 1971, a psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment to see the impact of fear. What did fear do to man? He was able to simulate an experiment with prisoners and guards and found out at the end of his experiment that the prisoner had severe stress and anxiety. The experiment demonstrated “the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior”. This experiment showed what a particular situation can influence human behavior. In the book, The Lord of the Flies, the characters are on a stranded island where the environment is governing their human behavior and how they react to one another. The character are influenced by fear and behave in ways that they normally would not act in their everyday lives. Man is controlled by fear and it can cause him to do things that he would never imagine doing. Fear results in letting go of your natural instincts and goes to your survival instincts, and makes you become an animal. Fear is defined as an “unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat”. The effects of fear can cause us to become a totally different person. In the book, The Lord of the Flies, many of the characters went from innocent young child to a brutal savage. “This was a savage whose image refused to blend with the innocent pictures of a boy in shorts and shirt” (Golding 183). The boys arrived on the island looking like proper British boys from a civilized place, and left the island

Get Access